Widescreen Issues in USB Loader GX (Monster Hunter Tri)

Well I did some searching and didn't find any results on this, so either I have a strange problem or my n00bness is really showing today.

I installed the Monster Hunter Tri NTSC iso onto my HDD and after some tweaking got it to run. I'm using Hermes cios 222/223 (3.0) rev 4 on 223 with 38 merged 37 (or something like that). The issue is that the game does not want to run in full widescreen. On my 37 inch tv there is about an inch of black on both sides. So the game runs not quite 4:3 and not quite 16:9. The odd thing is that there's no noticable distortion or "squishing" I've taken the following measures to try and remedy the issue on my own:

Force NTSC
Manually set the game to 16:9
Played with TV's zoom settings
Running in 480p with correct cables
Messed with a couple of settings in USB Loader GX

I also had this issue with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, but never cared enough to investigate into it. I did acquire this game from an...ehem..."3rd Party" source, so I've never had the game disc in my possession. If that's just the way the game runs natively I'm going to feel very silly...

Yeah I tried that as well. I think I've actually just discovered my answer. Most of the searching I did was only in regards to people playing it off USB Loader GX and on Wiihacks. Just after posting this thread I decided to see if people who actually owned the retail version of the game had this issue, and it appears they do. I incorrectly assumed it was an issue with my settings, but I guess the game just doesn't run natively in 16:9, dispite the options menu saying it does. For such a high profile game that seems odd...

You're probably not supposed to use Force NTSC either. You can't region force tri I think.

strange, Monster Hunter Tri runs perfectly on my widescreen via both usb loader and disc. My brother's, on the other hand, doesn't. He has the same issue as OP -- the video isn't in widescreen format despite the settings, but the picture isn't distorted in any way. Hm ...

It isn't a huge deal for me, but it still would be nice to know why it's doing that. I've just encountered another issue too. When I'm finally done with all the little tutorial missions and take on my first guild quest, as soon as I leave the camp area with the red and blue boxes the game hangs at the loading screen and never leaves. Maybe they are related issues, but I tend to doubt it.

Are you sure you're using the NTSC version of the game? Don't PAL TVs have a weird resolution like 540p or something along those lines?
I would think PAL games would display more wierdly than just slight black bars on the side, but I'm pretty confident the pal screen size is about what you're describing, because all the episodes I have of Top Gear are closer to 16x10 than they are to 16x9. Though I think the ratio is actually 5x4. So, look at your third party source to confirm that it is indeed an NTSC format.
Other than that, no ideas other than messing with the region settings.